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August 2010
by Ron Cerri

$20,000,000.00 To Be Used To Purchase and Retire Grazing Permits

 

Ruby Pipeline, owned by El Paso Corporation, recently announced that they have entered into a $20,000,000.00 arrangement with Western Watersheds Project (WWP) and Oregon Natural Deserts Association (ONDA). As a result of the agreement the two organizations would, in turn, drop their appeals to the gas pipeline.

According to Richard Wheatley, spokesman for El Paso Corporation, “The bottom line is we think it’s a preferable approach than being involved in litigation.” It is apparent by the statements made by the representatives for the pipeline company that they believe what they are doing is environmentally responsible and will mitigate any harm done to the ecosystem as a result of the pipeline’s construction.

According to a press release the $20,000,000.00 will be used to purchase and retire livestock grazing permits, remove fences and restore habitat. The agreement is for a period of ten years, and during the first five years the money will be used for conservation efforts in the periphery of the pipeline. John Marvel, Executive Director for WWP, stated that the first priority will be to buy out federal grazing permits from willing sellers. He also said, “It’s time to end public land grazing.” “Willing sellers;” most anyone can be made a willing seller if enough pressure is applied. When someone spends enough heartache and/or money litigating in order to keep a grazing permit and there is no end in sight you may become a “willing seller.” If the private property you have left is not enough to maintain a viable operation, then no problem, the money can be used to buy private property as well. In the second five years the money can be used anywhere with sagebrush habitat.

Because of the Taylor Grazing Act, WWP, ONDA or the BLM do not have the federal authority to eliminate grazing. This can only be done if Congress changes the law. It will be up to the industry to prevent this from happening. We will have to be prepared to tell our story about the benefits of public land grazing to Congress as well as to the public. Like how the use of grazing helps reduce wild land fires by reducing fuel loads. Ranchers create open space desirable to both wildlife and the public. Ranchers also develop and maintain water which is used not only by their livestock, but used by wildlife as well. This point was illustrated in the Tuscarora horse gather, where the horses there were dying because the water went dry. Had there been a rancher able to run livestock there, the rancher would have been monitoring the water hole and they could have alerted someone and the situation could have been avoided.

Because of the precedent set by El Paso Corporation, will every company wanting to use federal land, for example renewable energy companies wanting to develop solar or wind power, or a mining company for that matter, need to pay off extremist environmental groups in order to avoid endless litigation? I am not a lawyer, but to me this sounds an awful lot like back in the day when the mafia would strong arm businesses by telling them that if they wanted to have a business in their neighborhood they would have to pay them some money or else. The mafia called it an agreement; the federal government called it extortion.

Many ranchers with private land in the route of the pipeline have sold El Paso Corporation easements and/or water for the construction of this pipeline. These individuals didn’t do it for just the money but because they felt it was good for the entire country. El Paso Corporation had these contracts signed and completed months ago, before they made public this agreement with Western Watersheds Project and Oregon Natural Deserts Association. I wonder how many of these ranchers would have done so had they known El Paso Corporation had entered into an agreement to give $20,000,000.00 to two extreme environmental groups determined to destroy businesses that, in some cases, generations of their families have struggled to build.

“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

-- Theodore Roosevelt, December 3, 1907

 

 

 

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